The memory overclock really does much to increase gaming results, and GLH is faster that many GTX 960 competitors cards which have higher GPU clock, but no memory overclock. This was a good call on Gainward’s part.

Nvidia just launched the GTX 960 series, the first mainstream graphics card based on the company’s Maxwell architecture and we are playing with a few samples, including Gainward’s GTX 960 Phantom GLH (Goes Like Hell) card.

The GLH card looks like many other Gainward cards with the trademark Phantom cooler, as it is not a new design – the cooler is used on the GTX 760 Phantom card and GTX 970 Phantom card, but this is not a bad thing. Actually, it’s a good thing since this is a great cooler, but the downside is that it takes up 2.5 slots in your rig.

The Phantom’s fans are hidden behind the heatsink, so it may trick the casual observer into thinking that it’s a passive cooler. Still, if you peek through the heatsink fins, you’ll see the silhouettes of the fans. The shroud looks nice, but it is plastic. The GTX 970 Phantom card is 247mm long and 112mm high.

The fans can be removed without removing the heatsink or messing with the wiring. You just need to undo a single screw and pull the fan out of the heatsink. This clever trick was introduced on Gainward’s Kepler generation cards and it saves a lot of time if you need to clean your card.

The Phantom cooler is can keep the temperature below 69 degrees Celsius despite high factory overclock. More importantly, the card is quiet all the time. Gainward did not implement Nvidia’s new Fan Stop Mode feature (which stops the fan in idle) but the GTX 960 Phantom GLH is inaudible in idle mode anyway. Our measurements can confirm that in idle the GPU temperature of the GLH stays below 32 degrees Celsius and the card is totally silent. When it’s idling, the fans spin at about 800RPM, as you can see from the GPUZ screenshots below.

The GTX 960 Phantom GLH works at a base clock of 1279MHz, while the reference GPU base clock is 1126MHz. Nvidia's GPU Boost 2.0 takes the average GPU clock to 1342MHz for the reference GPU and to 1304MHz for the Phantom card.

The reference GTX 960 has a TDP of 120W and the GLH will consume a little bit more due to the factory overclock. Both cards use one 6-pin power connector. For comparison, the GTX 980 has a TDP of 165W and just like the GTX 970 it requires two 6-pin power connectors.

Like the Geforce GTX 980, the Geforce GTX 960 has a new display engine capable of supporting resolutions up to 5K with up to four simultaneous displays (including support for up to four 4K MST displays). GeForce GTX 960 also supports HDMI 2.0, and with added support for H.265 (HEVC) encoding and decoding.

The GTX 960 Phantom GLH is good card for gamers on a budget who are keen to play at 1080p with plenty of eye candy. The factory overclock brings better performance out of the box. The Gainward card comes with a 153MHz GPU overclock, and what we really like is the 50MHz (200MHz effective) memory overclock. The memory overclock really does much to increase gaming results, and GLH is faster that many GTX 960 competitors cards which have higher GPU clock, but no memory overclock. This was a good call on Gainward’s part.

We will proceed to run more tests and the full review will be available soon.

Nvidia has released two new graphics cards based on its latest Maxwell GPU architecture. The Geforce GTX 970 and Geforce GTX 980 will replace the outgoing Kepler-based Geforce GTX 780 and Geforce GTX 780Ti.

Although Nvidia showed off GTX 970 referent cards, we don’t expect to see many of them in retail. Nvidia gave its AIB partners the green light to offer custom designs at launch, so we are already seeing GTX 970 cards with factory overclocks and custom coolers.

Gainward is offering two 970-series cards. The first one works at reference clocks and comes with a custom blower cooler. The second one is factory overclocked card and comes with the Phantom cooler, which is supposed to ensure quiet operation at the higher clocks.

The GTX 970 Phantom works at a base clock of 1152MHz, while the reference GPU base clock is 1050MHz. Nvidia's GPU Boost 2.0 takes the average GPU clock to 1178MHz for the reference GPU and to 1304MHz for the Phantom card.

GTX 980 and GTX 970 are based on the new 28nm GM204 GPU. The GTX 980 comes with 2048 CUDA cores, while the GTX 970 has 1664 CUDA cores enabled. Three out of sixteen streaming multiprocessors, which each hold 128 CUDA cores, are disabled on the GTX 970.

In addition to the relatively impressive GPU clock, the Phantom also looks good. It uses a massive triple-slot cooler and it looks like it means business, but then again a triple-slot cooler isn’t a great choice for all users.

The fans can be removed without removing the heatsink or messing with the wiring. You just need to undo a single screw and pull the fan out of the heatsink. This clever trick was introduced on Gainward’s Kepler generation cards and it saves a lot of time if you need to clean your card.

The GTX 980 has a TDP of 165W, while the GTX 970 is rated at 145W (both cards require two 6-pin power connectors). The old GTX 780 Ti and GTX 780 have a TDP of 250W.

As far as video outputs on the reference GTX 970 are concerned, few users will have a reason to complain. The reference card features three DisplayPort connectors, an HDMI 2.0 connector (allowing you to run 4K@60Hz), and a dual-link DVI output for a total of five connectors.

The Gainward GTX 970 Phantom features the same number of connectors as the reference card, but it uses mini HDMI and mini DisplayPort connectors. They might not be the best choice for all users.

Just like their predecessors, GTX 980 and GTX 970 are capable of delivering smooth frame rates at resolutions up to 2560x1600. In case you are planning to build a 4K capable rig, two GTX 970 cards should be enough for good frame rates and anti-aliasing in demanding titles.

The Phantom’s performance is almost on a par with the EVGA GTX 970 Superclocked, which boasts a somewhat higher GPU clock. Despite the factory overclock, the Phantom cooler is still quiet and noise is simply not an issue. However, the GTX 970 Phantom heats up to 80 degrees Celsius and this is the price it pays for silence.

The GTX 970 Phantom is already shipping in Europe and it costs 20 to 30 euro more than the reference clocked Gainward GTX 970.

Gainward has announced its newest Phantom series graphics card, the GTX 780 Ti Phantom. Based on Gainward's own custom design, the new updated Phantom cooler and high-factory GPU overclock, the new Gainward GTX 780 Ti will certainly be one of the more interesting custom GTX 780 Ti graphics cards on the market.

Gainward decided to use the 980MHz for the base GPU clock, which is quite significantly higher than 875MHz on the reference design. It also comes with 3GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 7GHz and paired up with a 384-bit memory interface. According to Gainward, this was enough to make the GTX 780 Ti Phantom one of the fastest single-GPU graphics card on the market as it ends up to 10% faster than the reference GTX 780 Ti.

The custom PCB features an 8-phase VRM design with DrMOS and the card requires two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors which should ensure that there will be an additional overclocking headroom as well. The new triple-fan Phantom cooler design comes with a "removable fan" feature, where each fan body can be removed for cleaning. The Phantom cooler also features five 8mm heatpipes soldered to the copper base.

Gainward also included the "EXPERTmode" feature with EXPERTTool, which provides some way of tricking the new GTX 780 Ti Phantom in case you are looking for some extreme overclocking that go beyond factory overclock speeds.

Unfortunately, Gainward did not reveal any details regarding the availability date and more importantly, the price of the new GTX 780 Ti Phantom.

Gainward was quite keen to announce the "fastest GPU on the planet", the GTX 780 Ti 3GB. The new GTX 780 Ti is based on the same reference design that all partners have to stick to, at least for now, Gainward did also announce that the GTX 780 Ti Phantom series is definitely on the roadmap.

The currently available Gainward GTX 780 Ti packs 28nm GK110 GPU with 2880 CUDA cores and works at reference 876MHz base and 928MHz Boost GPU clocks, packs 3GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 7000MHz and uses the same blower-style reference cooler we have seen back on the GTX 780 and the GTX Titan graphics cards.

Unfortunately, Gainward did not shed any details regarding the GTX 780 Ti Phantom nor did it gave out any hint on when it is expected on retail/e-tail shelves. According to our sources, custom GTX 780 Ti cards should appear later next month, if all goes well.

So far we've had a few GTX 670 graphics cards in our tests. Throughout the tests, we've seen that overclocked GTX 670 cards can score comparably to GTX 680 and what's even better, many of Nvidia's partners offer factory overclocked GTX 670s running at GTX 680 clocks. One such card is Gainward's GTX 670 Phantom 2GB.

The Phantom's GPU runs at 1006MHz while the memory is at 1527MHz. Note that the reference clocks are 915MHz for the GPU and 1502MHz for memory.

An important difference compared to the GTX 680 is that the GTX 680 comes with eight SMX units and 1536 CUDA cores (each unit containing 192 CUDA cores), while the GTX 670 has seven SMX units and 1344 CUDA cores. Nvidia kept the identical memory system used on its GTX 680 card, meaning four 64-bit memory controllers (256-bit memory interface) and 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

We already tested the GTX 670 Phantom, here, and today we'll show you what it's capable of when running in SLI. What we're particularly interested in is the price-performance ratio. We're hoping that two GTX 670 Phantom cards will score similarly to two GTX 680, which would mean that they outscore a single GTX 690. Note that buying two GTX 670 Phantom cards can save up to 250 euro compared to two GTX 680 cards or a single GTX 690.

With the launch of GTX 670, Gainward launched a new version of its ExperTool, which is now in version II. ExperTool allows for overclocking Kepler based graphics, displaying sensor readouts or doing simple fan RPM control. It looks much better than the previous versions as well. You can find it here. We must say it would've been great if Gainward threw in a sensor readouts for the second card in SLI chain as well.

Tha card comes in a really neat looking box with a handle for carrying.

Phantom cooler has its own style. The fans are hidden and they can be seen only when looking straight at the card.

Three heatpipes are in charge of transferring the heat from the coolers base to the heatsink. Two 8cm fans take care of cooling the heatsink.

GTX 670 Phantom graphics card comes with two dual-link DVIs, standard HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. The card can run up to four displays simultaneously.

The cooler base is made of aluminum instead of more commonly used copper.

GTX 670 Phantom is about 24.7cm long, which is about the same as the reference GTX 670, but the Phantom cooler will take up three slots while the reference cooler is only two slots wide. This can prove to be a problem if you are planning on 3-way SLI.

Nvidia decided to use a minimalistic PCB, which is only 17.2cm long. Actually the cooler is to blame for the GTX 670's length of 24.7cm. As you can see from the pictures below, Phantom's PCB is slightly changed. All memory chips are placed on the GPU side, while with the reference design, odd and even memory chips were placed on opposite sides of the PCB.

Beside the difference in distribution of the memory chips, Gainward ’s PCB looks similar to the Nvidia’s reference PCB showed on picture below.

Nvidia GTX 670 2GB

GTX 670 comes with 2GB of memory. It has eight memory chips, just like the reference card. Gainward’s GTX 670 Phantom runs Hynix memory chips (model No: H5GQ2H24AFR-R0C), which are specified to run at 1500MHz (6000MHz GDDR5 effectively).

Gainward GTX 670 Phantom’s cooler has to deal with the factory overclock but it manages to do its job well, at least when it comes to keeping thermals in check. Our test with a single GTX 670 Phantom graphics card revealed temperatures up to 79 degrees Celsius, but SLI drove the first card to 85 degrees Celsius.

When it comes to noise levels, a single GTX 670 Phantom is about the same as the reference GTX 670. Cooling performance and noise are even better after considering the high factory overclock of the Phantom, but we have indeed seen better. Unfortunately, our GTX 670 Phantom SLI ran a bit loud after some gaming. The fans weren't too loud, but they are louder two GTX 680s in SLI.

The fans are quiet in idle mode.

For overclocking we left the fans in AUTO mode, since manual settings didn’t affect overclocking that much. Thermals were good even after our overclock but the fans are really loud.

Power Consumption

With two GTX 670 graphics cards we can save more than 200 euros and gain similar performance to GTX 680 SLI. We need to overclock those GTX 670 cards off course, but for those who do not want to deal with overclocking, two GTX 670 Phantom cards are a viable option. The GTX 670 Phantom sports a factory overclocked GPU which is set at 1006MHz, and this is exactly the same clock used on the GTX 680.

Performance of a single GTX 670 Phantom graphics card is close to that of GTX 680 but not the same, mainly because GTX 680 has 1536 CUDA cores while GTX 670 has 1344. We haven't noticed any significant difference in games except in tessellation heavy tests. Memory subsystems on both cards are the same 256-bit ones and each card has 2GB of GDDR5 memory. As expected, GTX 670 SLI power consumption is a bit lower compared to the GTX 680 SLI.

The performance boost we got with SLI is great. We could play any game at 2560x1600. Additional overclocking is similar to what we scored with a single GTX 670 Phantom card.

The only thing we did not like with GTX 670 Phantom SLI is fan noise. The fans are not too loud but are not comfortable either. Two GTX 680 cards in SLI are a bit quieter compared to the GTX 670 Phantom SLI.

If you value quiet operation and power consumption, the best decision would be to go for GTX 690. 1000 euro buys two GTX 680 cards, or a single GTX 690. At the same time, 760 euro for two GTX 670 Phantom cards sounds like a much more reasonable choice for most of us.

In short we just showed that performance-wise, two factory overclocked GTX 670 Phantom cards can hold their own against the GTX 680 SLI, and they are certainly a more affordable option. Bear in mind though that Phantom cooling is three slots wide.

Upon Nvidia’s launch of GTX 670 graphics cards, Gainward already had two products to compete with. Today we’ll show you a special model – Gainward GTX 670 Phantom 2GB. The other GTX 670 we mentioned is based on reference model and clocks.

Nonreference coolers are quite popular and Gainward’s Phantom series has always been a standout product in that respect. The series boasts some nice overclocks as well, not least due to quality cooling.

GTX 670 Phantom’s GPU ticks at 1006MHz while the memory is at 1527MHz (6108MHz effectively). Note that reference clocks are 915/1502MHz for the GPU/memory.

The card packs eight memory chips totaling at 2GB of GDDR5 memory. Good news for Nvidia fans is that the company kept the identical memory system used on its GTX 680 card, meaning four 64-bit memory controllers (256-bit memory interface) and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The company didn’t change memory clocks compared to the GTX 680, and it stands at 1502MHz (6008MHz effectively) on reference GTX 670 cards.

With the launch of GTX 670, Gainward launched a new version of its ExperTool, which is now in version II. ExperTool allows for overclocking Kepler based graphics, displaying sensor readouts or doing simple fan RPM control. It looks much better than the previous versions as well. You can find it here.

We must say it would be great if Gainward threw in a Frame Rate Target and sensor readouts for the second card in SLI chain as well.

Clicking Overclock G button opens up a new window, where users are free to set their OC parameters.

Gainwardov GTX 670 Phantom’s cooler is definitely a looker. The fans are hidden behind the heatsink so it may trick users into thinking it’s a passive cooler. Still, if you peek through the heatsink, you’ll see silhouettes of two fans.

GTX 670 Phantom is about 24.7cm long, which is about the same as the reference GTX 670.

Below is a picture of Gainward’s 670 2GB graphics card, which runs at reference clocks. As you can see, they more than just a bit different.

Gainward GTX 670 2GB

Nvidia GTX 670 2GB

Things get interesting once you flip the GTX 670 over. Namely, the PCB ends where the power connectors are placed.

The PCB is only 17.2cm long.

Reference GTX 670 cards are powered via two 6-pin power connectors, just like the factory overclocked Gainward GTX 670 Phantom.

The reference card’s TDP stands at 170W, but the higher clocks on Gainward’s GTX 670 Phantom’s higher clocks should increase this number slightly. Still, two 6-pin power connectors coupled with PCI Express power will be more than enough for the GTX 670.

Gainward used its own PCB, which is pretty clear once you see that its memory modules aren’t distributed as on the reference GTX 670 (picture below). Namely, odd and even memory chips were placed on opposite sides of the PCB, while the Phantom’s memory chips are all on the front.

Nvidia GTX 670 2GB

Nvidia GTX 670 2GB

The following photo shows GTX 670 Phantom with the cooler off.

GTX 670 comes with 2GB of memory. It has eight memory chips, just like the reference card.

Good news for Nvidia fans is that the company kept the identical memory system used on its GTX 680 card, meaning four 64-bit memory controllers (256-bit memory interface) and 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The memory runs at 1502MHz (6008MHz effectively), again just like the GTX 680.

The Phantom’s heatsink houses three heatpipes and it’s not a mystery as to why the card takes up three slots. The fans are on the cooler and are protected with an aluminum grill. Taking off the plastic shroud that holds the fans, e.g. for cleaning or something, is a breeze.

The memory is air cooled and you can see a few modules through the heatsink.

For the cooler base Gainward used aluminum instead of more commonly used copper.

Gainward GTX 670 Phantom graphics comes with two dual-link DVIs, but only allows for analog VGA. If you want to use VGA, you’ll have to use the DVI connector that’s level with HDMI and DisplayPort connectors. It’s important to note that Nvidia addressed its previous multi-display “disadvantages” so Kepler based cards can now run up to four displays simultaneously.

Frame rate target is a function Nvidia launched with its GTX 680 series. If your favorite game isn’t very demanding and your graphics card is capable of spewing out a super high frame rate, then you can limit it to 60fps or lower. This will lower the GPU temperatures, noise and your electricity bill as well.

As you can see from the curve, we dropped below the 60fps during gaming, which meant frame rate target wasn’t active.

The graph you see on the picture below (left) shows the workload and consumption when frame rate target is off. On the right you see what happens when frame rate target is on. GPU was utilized to about 100% until we turned on the frame rate target option, which significantly decreased it. Additionally, consumption also went down. The values you see were measured while playing AvP at 1920x1080.

We used EVGA’s Precision v.3.0.2. and this tool allows setting frame rate target to any value from 25fps to 120fps. Note: you must restart the application for the setting to apply.

GPU Boost technology takes care of the card so overclocking is not as simple. Kepler GPU has two clocks – one being the Base clock, which is the guaranteed clock, while the other is Boost clock, average auto-overclocking clocks.

If the card needs more power to boost performance to a certain level, and the thermals aren’t too high, it will auto overclock to the specified max threshold.

When we want to overclock the GPU, we increase the Base clock and hope that GPU Boost technology will “grant” our request. Unless we overdid it, GPU Boost will make sure to squeeze out more juice from the chip.

Gainward GTX 670 Phantom 2GB is a factory overclocked card whose GPU runs at 1006MHz, and the memory at 1527MHz. Gainward also launched its ExperTool tool (picture below), which of course supports overclocking of all GTX 600 series graphics cards.

The maximum stable GPU clock for the GTX 670 Phantom 2GB was 1056MHz. We achieved a similar result with our EVGA GTX 670 Superclocked graphics cards (1067MHz).

GPU Boost continued to auto-overclock the card so we recorded clocks up to 1215MHz.

Phantom cooler did a good job but didn’t quite blow us away (no pun intended). Perhaps our high expectations had something to do with it, but we’re used to seeing Gainward’s Phantom coolers excelling. However, thermals were good even after our overclock. We left the fans in AUTO mode, since manual settings didn’t affect overclocking that much.

The fans can be heard clearly but aren’t too loud, much like with reference coolers. Bear in mind though that Phantom is cooling a factory overclocked GPU. The fans are quiet in idle mode, but not quite inaudible.

It’s clear that the card is overclocked from the increase in consumption, but it’s well worth the performance.

GTX 670 Phantom 2GB is Gainward’s premium model for gamers and enthusiasts, which is pretty much clear from the fact that it runs at reference GTX 680’s clocks. The memory and 256-bit system are common for both of these cards, whereas Phantom actually has slightly faster memory. Still, that wasn’t enough to beat the GTX 680, which has eight SMX units and 1536 CUDA cores. GTX 670 on the other hand has seven SMX units and 1344 CUDA cores.

At the end of the day though, Gainward GTX 670 Phantom has every reason to stand proud because it showed excellent performance. In fact, on few occasions it even manages to beat the GTX 680.

We’ve seen that there’s some overclocking headroom left as well, even despite the already high GPU overclock to 1006MHz. Thanks to our overclock, Gainward GTX 670 Phantom even managed to beat GTX 680 in Crysis 2 by 4 percent. Gainward will also provide you with its upgraded card management tool ExperTool II.

The only thing that didn’t impress us is the Phantom cooler, which is what the card should be notable for. Performance wise, it beats the reference GTX 670’s solution, but noise levels are about the same. That’s not to say that it’s very loud, but we can’t say it’s inaudible either. Despite the overclocked core, we’d still much rather see Gainward keep the tradition of making coolers that beat reference solutions in both cooling and noise departments.

If you’re yearning for GTX 680’s performance but can’t quite afford it, then Gainward’s GTX 670 Phantom will save you some €50 while delivering comparable performance. You can improve its score even more if you’re into tweaking, which makes the card one sweet package.

Shortly after the launch of its GTX 680 Phantom 2GB graphics card, Gainward decided to launch yet another GTX Phantom, but this time around it comes with double the memory.

Nvidia launched its GTX 680 with 2GB of memory and many think that it’s still not enough. While we’d agree that GTX 680 needs more memory, it’s only on rare occasions and in chosen apps. Most of us will find GTX 680 to be a good card and in cases when 2GB is enough, the additional memory will only be a burden. In fact, it’s quite possible to get lower results with a 4GB card than with a 2GB one.

However, those who know where to put the additional memory to use will like Gainward’s GTX Phantom 4GB.

The picture below shows GTX Phantom 2GB and GTX 680 Phantom 4GB and, as you can see, there is no difference in coolers. The only visible difference is that the 4GB Phantom comes with eight memory modules on the back of the PCB.

We’d like to have seen see the new Phantom factory overclocked like its 2GB sibling, but the card we received runs at reference clocks. However, we’re confident that the excellent Phantom cooling will allow for easy overclocking, but more on that when we finish our tests.

So, let’s recap – Phantom 4GB’s GPU runs at 1006MHz. The memory is clocked at 1502MHz while the 2GB Phantom’s GPU and memory are clocked at 1086MHz and 1575MHz, respectively.

The following graphs show how much memory is used when playing Crysis 2 at 2560x1600 with 4xAA, 16xAF and Ultra settings. You can see that the frame buffer on the 2GB Phantom is topped, while the 4GB Phantom’s is half empty.

GTX 680 Phantom 2GB

GTX 680 Phantom 4GB

Despite the larger frame buffer, Gainward’s Phantom 4GB ran slower than the 2GB version in all the tests we ran so far.

Gainward’s GTX 680 Phantom 4GB goes for €600, which is a bit too steep, especially after considering that EU prices of GTX 680 cards are already overpriced compared to US ones.

Gainward's Fermi-based Phantom series has received much praise and attention but Kepler is here and it's time to move forward. For the time being, the GPU only powers GTX 680 cards but thankfully, Gainward's Phantom is aimed at high-end cards to begin with. So, our today's guest is Gainward's GTX 680 Phantom graphics card.

Gainward's offer already boasts three GTX 680 graphics cards and we hear that a new GTX 680 Phantom is around the corner, this time with 4GB of memory. This should be interesting news, since reference GTX 680 cards come with 2GB of memory, but extreme resolutions suggest that the GTX 680 would prefer a larger buffer.

The Phantom card we tested comes with reference 2GB of memory, which is factory overclocked just like the GPU.

Note that reference GPU clock is 1006MHz whereas the Phantom runs at 1085MHz. The card's memory runs at 1575MHz, which is 73MHz (292MHz effcetively) higher than reference.

Although factory overclocking is a welcome addition, we believe that it's the card's cooling that will attract users even more. According to Gainward's internal tests, Phantom cooling should be up to 6°C cooler and up to 11.5 dB quieter.

Of course, we'll check these results but we're pretty sure we will only confirm them. Quite expectedly, since Gainward used a two and a half slots wide heatsink with two fans.

We found Gainward’s packaging to be quite nice, as the company included a handle as well.

GTX 680's Phantom cooler is different from the one used on GTX 580 cards, although the cards may seem identical at a glance. The new cooler kept the 2.5 slot width. However, removing the shroud reveals that the new Phantom cooler uses only two fans but takes advantage of the new heatsink's larger dissipation surface. Note that the GTX 580 Phantom used three fans.

Two 8cm PWM fans are tucked away in a special chamber within the heatsink.

Below are some pics of GTX 580 Phantom and its cooler.

The only thing we didn’t like on GTX 580 Phantom’s cooler was the noise. Although the fans weren’t too loud, reference GTX 580 cards were slightly quieter. It goes without saying that Gainward’s solution performed better. Compared to the reference GTX 680, Gainward’s GTX 680 Phantom on the other hand brings noticeably quieter operation and superior cooling in one package.

A five-heatpipe system is used to take care of heat transfer between the cooler base and the heatsink. As you can see from the picture below, some heatpipes stretch to the farthest end of the heatsink.

The heatsink features clean design without sharp edges. The welds between heatpipes and aluminum fins were done well.

As we mentioned before, Phantom’s cooler is equipped with two fans but two fans share the same 4-pin power connector. However, this is not as important because the driver will take care of setting the same RPM for both fans. Setting the RPM manually is a breeze using Gainward’s ExperTool or any other popular utility like MSI Afterburner or EVGA PrecisionX.

The next picture shows how cable routing was implemented.

Pulling cold air through the heatsink is the main task for the fans, but they are in charge of cooling hot components on the PCB too. As you can see from the picture, the big metal plate covers all the shorter electrical components on the PCB, such as memory modules.

GTX 680 Phantom is equipped with a total of 2048MB GDDR5 video memory.

As far as video outs go, we have here the classic Gainward’s Quattro-ports design, i.e. two dual link DVIs, HDMI and DisplayPort out.

Note that all four video outs can be used simultaneously. Nvidia included an HDMI sound device within the GPU, so there is no need for connecting the card to your motherboard’s/soundcard’s SPDIF out to get audio and video via HDMI.

Unlike the reference GTX 680, which uses two 6-pin power connectors, Gainward’s juiced up card will require one 8-pin connector and one 6-pin power connector. Gainward adds two extra phases for power supply for GPU core that helps to supply more fuel to the overclocked graphics engine and share the current load with other four phases to reduce the max operating current.

Overclocking and GPU Boost are closely related. Namely, GPU Boost is a hardware implemented feature that cannot be disabled. GPU Boost operates completely autonomously with no game profiles and no intervention required by the end user, providing an instant performance boost to gamers. This feature monitors important operation parameters and calculates optimum GPU clocks. However, although it may seem as an overclocking limiter, overclocking is still flexible enough. In fact, GTX 680’s OC potential isn’t half bad. Note that reference GTX 680 cards run at 1006MHz, whereas the Phantom’s GPU is at 1085MHz.

Gainward GTX 680

Gainward GTX 680 Phantom

GPU Boost is similar to Intel’s Turbo Boost. If an app or game you started doesn’t overburden the GPU, i.e. doesn’t max out the TDP and thermals, then GPU Boost will up the clock from the Base clock to Boost clock and thus improve performance.

Shader clock is something that Nvidia abandoned with Kepler, but now we have other two clocks worth noting – “Base Clock“ and “Boost Clock“.

The Boost Clock is the average clock frequency the GPU will run under load in many typical non-TDP apps that require less GPU power consumption. On average, the typical Boost Clock provided by GPU Boost in Geforce GTX 680 is 1058MHz, an improvement of just over 5%. The Boost Clock is a typical clock level achieved while running a typical game in a typical environment.

However, in many cases the GPU will have additional power headroom available and will automatically increase the Boost Clock even higher than 1058MHz. As long as the GPU remains under its power target, GPU Boost will seamlessly increase the GPU Clock. We measured maximum GPU clock of 1110MHz on Gainward’s reference GTX 680 while Phantom’s max was 1189MHz.

While playing at 2560x1600, we noticed that clocks change almost every few seconds, whether it was downclocking or overclocking. Note that the sole exception was 1110MHz as we didn’t see it at this resolution. After we lowered the resolution to 1920x1080 and then 1680x1050, we noticed that clocks remain unchanged longer. In fact, 1280x1024 resulted in almost constant 1097MHz. This clearly shows that GPU Boost gets quite busy when the workload is higher, since it has to intervene and keep the operation parameters within normal limits. This is why it’s difficult to say what the maximum clock is, because although it can run stable some time, it doesn’t mean it will remain fixed after few hours of gaming.

Overclocking the GPU within Precision X overclocking tool uses two sliders” “GPU Clock Offset” that affects the Base clock and Boost clock, whereas the “Power Target” slider moves the TDP threshold, which in turn enables higher Base and Boost clocks. Note: This setting only applies to 600 series graphics cards. Power Target is a power limiter. Increasing the Power Target will increase the available power to your graphics card, allowing for higher overclocks, or higher boost clocks.

You overclock by setting an offset value, this value is + or – every prequalified clockspeed. EG: If your Boost clock is 1058MHz, setting a +100MHz offset will make your Boost clock 1158MHz. Our additional “overclocking” resulted in +80MHz offset for the Base clock, i.e. maximum clock of 1269MHz.

Gainward GTX 680 Phantom’s OC result

The overclocking we’re talking about was done without manual fan RPM setting, because higher fan speeds couldn’t provide better results. The fan in auto mode isn’t too loud, although it can be heard.

Precision X also provides voltage control but that didn’t help in scoring higher than +90MHz offset for the Base clock.

Gainward GTX 680 Phantom’s OC temperature result

Thermals and Noise

Gainward GTX 680 Phantom temperatures go up from 72°C to 77°C during gaming. This is excellent when taking into account the low noise levels. On the Gainward GTX 680 reference design temperatures go up to 80°C during gaming.

The GTX 680 Phantom’s fans are less noisy compared to reference GTX 680 ones. Note that there were no sudden changes in fan noise. However, two 8cm PWM fans tucked away in a special chamber within the heatsink does introduce one disadvantage - the card is 2.5 slots wide.

Note however the codependency between thermals and clock calculations, which may result in different performance depending on thermals. As soon as the card overheats, which causes current leakage increases, GPU Boost will decrease clocks and voltage.

Power Consumption

Gainward’s GTX 680 Phantom consumed not more than the same company’s reference version. GTX 680’s power consumption is a little better than that of its main competitor – HD 7970. However, AMD’s card boasts ZecoCore, a feature that shuts the card down once the display is off, which slashes consumption to mere 1W. The same scenario will see the GTX 680 consume about 14W. Still, GTX 680’s power management is definitely a job well done because the card scores more than 20% better than its predecessor GTX 580 while consuming 50W+ less.

Frame rate target is a function Nvidia launched with its GTX 680 series. If your favorite game isn’t very demanding and your graphics card is capable of spewing out a super high frame rate, then you can limit it to 60fps or lower. In turn, this decreases GPU temperatures, noise and your electricity bill as well.

Powerful graphics cards consume a lot of power, especially when the GPU constantly runs at full throttle. In case of the GTX 680 Phantom card, we managed to slash consumption by 20W in Aliens vs. Predator by limiting the frame rate at 60fps. The resolution in question was 1920x1080.

We used EVGA’s Precision v.3.0.2. and this tool allows setting frame rate target to any value from 25fps to 120fps. Note: you must restart the application for the setting to apply.

The graph we see on the picture below (left) shows the workload and consumption when frame rate target is off. On the right you see what happens when frame rate target is on. GPU was utilized to about 100% until we turned on the frame rate target option, which significantly decreased it. Additionally, consumption also went down. The values you see were measured while playing AvP at 1920x1080.

Gainward GTX 680 Phantom is a factory overclocked card with custom cooling that’s quieter and has better cooling performanse that the reference version. The factory overclock will provide you with about 6-7 percent better results than the reference card but Phantom cooling is definitely what sets it apart from the pack.

Gainward continued its tradition so the new Phantom is still dual slot, but we think most users won’t mind. We can’t pick hairs as the cooler does its job really good and it remains quiet all the time.

When playing less demanding games, users can limit frame rates, which will result in lower consumption and thermals. The reference card already boasts great consumption/performance ratio and Gainward’s GTX 680 Phantom consumes almost the same.

Power consumption and the two-display limit were a thorn in Nvidia’s backside for a while now. However, Nvidia finally addressed these issues and the GTX 680 allows for using all four video outs simultaneously.

About two weeks ago we tested Gainward’s reference GTX 680. The reference card is priced at about €475 in Europe, which is pricier than AMD’s HD 7970. Thankfully for AMD fans, we’ve seen significant price drops of HD 7970 cards and their US pricing has dropped from $549.99 to $469.99, so HD 7970 is more affordable than GTX 680. As for Europe, HD 7970 cards can be found priced at €400, which is some €60 less compared to the price we saw two weeks ago.

Bearing in mind pricing of HD 7970 cards, GTX 680 Phantom’s price of €526 seems a bit too steep. At the same time, this is about €60 more compared to the Gainward’s reference GTX 680 model. Other than that, Gainward's 680 Phantom 2GB card is most certainly a quality product that comes with special cooling and factory overclocking and will be a worthy companion for years to come.

A single listing in Sweden has revealed that Gainward is apparently working on a 4GB version of its flagship graphics card, the Gainward GTX 680 Phantom.

There has already been a couple of news posts and announcements regarding 4GB version of the GTX 680 and it is now clear that most, if not all partners will have such cards. This early listing of the Gainward GTX 680 Phantom 4GB shows that these cards might be just around the corner. Gainward's listed GTX 680 Phantom 4GB looks identical to the 2GB version that we already had a chance to preview here. Since there is no picture of the back of the card we guess that additional 2GB of memory is placed there and probably paired up with some sort of backplate.

Since we are talking about an early listing here it is no wonder that the price at Komplett.se is set at around US $880 when converted from Swedish Kronor. Additonal 2GB of memory will bring the price up and we guess it could end up to be just a bit over HD 7970.

Drawn by the success of its reference GTX 680 graphics card, Gainward stepped up its efforts and came up with a new cooler for the company’s factory overclocked GTX 680 Phantom graphics cards. So now, the cooler is ready and the clocks are final for Gainward’s new top offering.

The GPU clock, or Base clock to be precise, in 3D apps stands at 1085MHz, whereas the Boost clock will be 1150MHz. Gainward decided to stick with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, just like on the reference model. However, the company overclocked the memory from 1502MHz to 1575MHz (6300MHz GDDR5 effectively).

Compared to the one on Gainward’s GTX 580 cards, the new Phantom cooler went through certain changes. As you can see, the aesthetics is still there. Although the Phantom may seem semi-passive at first glance, it actually packs two 8cm PWM fans tucked away in a special chamber within the heatsink.

Nvidia’s Kepler GPU isn’t very hard to cool but this exceptionally large cooler, which takes up two and a half slots, marries quality performance with silent operation. GTX 680 Phantom’s cooler ensures about 8°C lower temperatures than the reference one.

Unlike the reference GTX 680, which uses two 6-pin power connectors, Gainward’s juiced up card will require one 8-pin connector and one 6-pin power connector.

We found Gainward’s packaging to be quite nice, as the company included a handle as well. So now, after you purchase a GTX 680 Phantom, you can take a walk and show it off. Yeah, we know you probably won’t, but it’s still nice to know you can.

The first results we got suggest that Gainward’s GTX 680 Phantom is about 6-7 percent faster than the reference version. Stay tuned as we’ll have the full review up soon.